Conjuring 2 Spin-off The Nun Gets Director Corin Hardy

7 months ago

After launching a successful spin-off series from The Conjuring with Annabelle that sees Annabelle 2 arriving in theaters this August, New Line announced a Conjuring 2 spin-off last summer entitled The Nun. Today the studio has found its director for this horror spin-off, enlisting The Crow remake director Corin Hardy to take the helm. No story details have been given at this time, but this spin-off may offer an origin story for this terrifying nun character, who was actually a last-minute addition into the sequel.

The demon nun scene was a big hit when the movie was released last summer, but it was not part of the original script, and it was added into the film just months before the movie opened, during reshoots. James Wan had a cut of the movie where the villain was simply a demon with large horns, who Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) encounter. The studio was ready to release this version, but then the director had a last-minute vision that this character was actually a demonic nun, dubbed Valak. He convinced the studio to undergo reshoots in March, three months before the movie opened on June 10.

While some of the changes that needed to be made were minor, with the art piece Ed Warren is painting being changed from a demon to a nun, others were much more extensive. One scene that was added involved Lorraine Warren watching the nun’s shadow crawl across a wall to line up with the painting. Bonnie Aarons portrayed the nun in The Conjuring 2, but we’ll have to wait and see if she comes back. The Nun was also featured in an epic prank video that surfaced just before the sequel’s release in Brazil.

Our initial report revealed that David Leslie Johnson, who wrote The Conjuring 2, was writing the script, with James Wan and Peter Safran coming back to produce. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, with Deadline reporting that James Wan is co-writing the script with Gary Dauberman, who wrote both Annabelle and Annabelle 2. This project will be Corin Hardy’s next film, putting The Crow reboot on the back-burner once again. Jason Momoa is attached to star, but the project needs to find a new studio home after finally breaking away from Relativity Media.

The Conjuring hit theaters in the summer of 2013, opening with an impressive $41.8 million, en route to $137.4 million domestic and $318 million worldwide, from a $20 million budget. The 2014 spinoff, Annabelle was also a hit with audiences, earning $84.2 million domestic and $256.8 million worldwide, from just a $6.5 million budget. The Conjuring 2 earned $102.4 million domestically and $217.8 million internationally for a worldwide total of $320.2 million, from just a $40 million budget. Hopefully we’ll hear more about casting for The Nun soon, including word on whether or not Bonnie Aarons will return to reprise her role.